The payment wars will only end when central banks like the U.S. Federal Reserve, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC; the Bank of Canada, the Reserve Bank of India, the European Central Bank, and the Bank of England step in and take control of the payment system. That will be a repeat of what happened with paper money, which was originally printed by private banks but eventually taken over by Central Banks.

My prediction is lesser solutions like Microsoft Pay and Stripe will eventually be rolled into a larger payment solution. Eventually, there may just be one payment app; which will probably be managed by the Federal Reserve, or an international agency of some sort.

The volume of Venmo payments increased by 86% during 2017, rising from $6.8 billion in 1st Quarter to $10.4 billion in 4th Quarter, Statisa reported. If those figures are accurate, Venmo’s payment volume increased by $3.6 billion during 2017.
These figures indicate that PayPal might be the most successful payment solution in the world. It might also be creating a Fintech network that will one day rival those of Visa (NYSE: VA) and MasterCard (NYSE: MA).

This should greatly increase Venmo use by eliminating two of the greatest drawbacks to the app. Those drawbacks were the inability to use it at most brick and mortar businesses, and the difficulty converting Venmo funds into paper cash.

Payments will be the big tech battle of 2018. Expect competition in this sector to heat up as PayPal starts raking in more cash.

Beyond enabling Chinese business the Oxford deal gives Ant; and Tencent, a beachhead to enter the Canadian market. Once ensconced at the centers the two companies will start marketing their payment options to Canadians.

This is big news for PayPal because Facebook Messenger is one of the world’s most popular social media solutions; with 1.3 billion users in September 2017, Statista reported. To add icing to the cake, Facebook also owns WhatsApp which also has 1.3 billion users worldwide.

Cryptocurrencies are a menace because they can form the basis of a wide variety of financial products including loans, bonds, and savings account. A major threat to banks is that fast-growing altcoins such as Bitcoin and Ethereum provide a better hedge against inflation than cash. Particularly dangerous to banks will be cryptocurrency Visa and MasterCard products that allow payment at brick and mortar stores with altcoins. Also on the horizon are cryptocurrency banks such as Change Bank. A major threat is that cryptocurrencies will become the money transfer mechanism of choice, allowing consumers to cut out banks completely.

PayPal sees a bright future for P2P and is betting big on the technology. The company acquired the Canadian cloud-based payment processor TIO Networks for $233 million in February, a press release indicates.

Tim Cook is hiding some important data about Apple Pay, for example he did not say how many users the digital wallet actually has. Cook’s omission of that important detail was deliberate; because it would show small Apple Pay’s footprint really is.

Another lesson we can infer here is the big growth in online banking is going to established players like Capital One, and not to upstarts such as Bank of Internet (NASDAQ: BOFI). That makes Capital One a good growth stock in financial services and fintech, but is it a good investment?

Western Union is making a lot of money and generating a lot of float for its size. It’s also easy to see why its stock value is going up. Ycharts reported that investors were rewarded with a dividend yield of 3.13% and a return on equity of 63.2% on September 16, 2016.